It is interesting to see how each art dealer stages their own tastes and makes the pieces work in their personal environment. Some need to cut themselves off from their professional lives, such as the British art dealer Sean Kelly, based in New York, whose home on the Hudson River is “very much a refuge”: “If you’re a dealer, when you walk through an art fair, thousands of people are talking to you. You spend three days nonstop talking. This house is totally isolated. It’s very private. So the minute I can, I run away and come back up here. I will find any excuse to spend time here.”

On the other hand, the Frenchwoman Almine Rech-Picasso mixes her work with her personal space. Her villa in Brussels only displays works by artists that she herself would happily represent: “I represent only artists whom I would like to put in my home. It’s the first thing I think about when I visit a studio. I try to put myself into the position not of the dealer but of the collector and ask myself, ‘Would I live with that piece?’”

For other dealers, like Boris Vervoordt, art is very personal. In his house in Antwerp, which mixes Baroque and Japanese influences, the son of May and Axel Vervoordt explains that “The pieces in our house are all about memories of friendships and of moments together. Collecting is not about ownership or value but personal relationships.” A collection can also be a medium for other art dealers to express themselves, such as Xavier Hufkens and Pierre Marie Giraud, who recall their Brussels apartment: “As a collector, you cannot buy everything. You have to choose; you have to make decisions. So your collection speaks about yourself. And this house speaks very much about ourselves.”